We have half term Friday, i had hoped to hand in MKII Friday ready for the exams starting day after we go back. I have had NO END of problems with the MKII. The time frame was way over ambitious hence why I have posted 4am in the morning some times 
.
I should have it ready over the holidays if I sort two final niggles out. I cant believe despite the complexity of it my problems have mainly been highly irritating silly things.
Major problem 1) It refused point blank to start up, I checked everything from the power supply to every board and circuit, all voltages correct and everything hunky dory, yet the moment I select start and the system does a self check it went through the first 10 seconds of check then died!! Time after time! Had me stumped for 3 days. The is a switch between the main controller and the backup controller, the idea is if you try and start it and havnt checked the backup system it wont start, so the last switch you throw is the isolation switch between main and aux circuit.
That way when it does a self check if it dosnt see the aux circuit it throws a fault and flashes a led.
The switch was dud, but not a normal easy dud, oh no too easy!! It would switch fine and show a voltage (3.3V) and draw around <100mA, so during the self test this part was passing, but as soon as the power boards were being tested the switch was seeing just over 1A. The switch is rated for 240V 5A, but at 1A the contacts must have been damaged and they heated up and opened. So it caused a fault but indicated the motor board. Tore my hair out until out of frustration I changed it and a few other switches, bingo was working again.
I have mashed the switch with a hammer every time I have hit a problem, its kept on the bench for this purpose now.
I have two other problems, one i am pretty sure is a ADC on a chip thats playing up, but the chip had to be hardsoldered into the board, and would be a pain to swap out, I dont see any other choice though but to strip out the carefully positioned and weighted boards and redo it.
The other problem i am certain is a code change, but the last 3k of code has got spaghetti as I was rushing to finish on time, this is going to be a night mare! I could fudge it for now but it will annoy the hell out of me!! But considering I had 12 months to do it in and then had that cut to under three months I am pretty happy.
I wanted different motors for more power and longer battery life, but would have taken too long to get them and change the mounts and re balance. I have gone with 8 out runners but preying I can get away with mainly 4 on at a time and 6 for certain things, the 8 will only be needed all at once if it has to bank really hard.
Anyone else get these last min frustrations when up against a tight dead line? why is it only silly things that go wrong? After the exam I am free to publish the whole project and apparently its going to be on BBC click program! (if it dosnt go up in smoke).
.I should have it ready over the holidays if I sort two final niggles out. I cant believe despite the complexity of it my problems have mainly been highly irritating silly things.
Major problem 1) It refused point blank to start up, I checked everything from the power supply to every board and circuit, all voltages correct and everything hunky dory, yet the moment I select start and the system does a self check it went through the first 10 seconds of check then died!! Time after time! Had me stumped for 3 days. The is a switch between the main controller and the backup controller, the idea is if you try and start it and havnt checked the backup system it wont start, so the last switch you throw is the isolation switch between main and aux circuit.
That way when it does a self check if it dosnt see the aux circuit it throws a fault and flashes a led.
The switch was dud, but not a normal easy dud, oh no too easy!! It would switch fine and show a voltage (3.3V) and draw around <100mA, so during the self test this part was passing, but as soon as the power boards were being tested the switch was seeing just over 1A. The switch is rated for 240V 5A, but at 1A the contacts must have been damaged and they heated up and opened. So it caused a fault but indicated the motor board. Tore my hair out until out of frustration I changed it and a few other switches, bingo was working again.
I have mashed the switch with a hammer every time I have hit a problem, its kept on the bench for this purpose now.
I have two other problems, one i am pretty sure is a ADC on a chip thats playing up, but the chip had to be hardsoldered into the board, and would be a pain to swap out, I dont see any other choice though but to strip out the carefully positioned and weighted boards and redo it.
The other problem i am certain is a code change, but the last 3k of code has got spaghetti as I was rushing to finish on time, this is going to be a night mare! I could fudge it for now but it will annoy the hell out of me!! But considering I had 12 months to do it in and then had that cut to under three months I am pretty happy.
I wanted different motors for more power and longer battery life, but would have taken too long to get them and change the mounts and re balance. I have gone with 8 out runners but preying I can get away with mainly 4 on at a time and 6 for certain things, the 8 will only be needed all at once if it has to bank really hard.
Anyone else get these last min frustrations when up against a tight dead line? why is it only silly things that go wrong? After the exam I am free to publish the whole project and apparently its going to be on BBC click program! (if it dosnt go up in smoke
).
).
